


Rat King

by wanda von dunayev (wandavon)



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Bureaucracy and Bodice-Ripping, Emotional Manipulation, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Fantastic Racism, Forced Marriage, Infidelity, Markarth (Elder Scrolls), Older Man/Younger Woman, Politics, Post-Forsworn Conspiracy, Power Dynamics, Unhealthy Relationships, Unreliable Narrator, Various Kinks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-15 15:22:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29685999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wandavon/pseuds/wanda%20von%20dunayev
Summary: Shining princes live only in poems, Lady Val. There’s no kindness without a cost, and no insult that goes unanswered.In the face of financial ruin, Valsanna receives a compassionate 'offer' from a man not noted for his compassion and not accustomed to having his 'offers' refused. But a wise woman sees opportunities wherever they arise, even if they present themselves in less than ideal forms. All she has to do is survive her new alliance—and her new ally.Or: with his disastrous conspiracy cut short, Thonar's new strategy for securing lands, allies, and strategic assets involves a lighter touch and more hands-on involvement.
Relationships: Thonar Silver-Blood/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7





	Rat King

**Author's Note:**

> I think I've read all 3.5k forced marriage fics on the Archive because it's my favourite trope, and it's high time I blew the dust off and took it for a whirl myself. This is my fond, loving sort-of-deconstruction sort-of-not. Am I laughing, or am I sweating and rubbing my disgusting clammy hands? Yes.
> 
> Please heed the tags—all of them are pervasive and start from the first chapter. I will also add specific warnings to endnotes of chapters, as needed.
> 
> Thank you to [Borichu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/borichu/pseuds/borichu) and [FourCatProductions](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FourCatProductions/pseuds/FourCatProductions) for the fantastic beta work! Two incredible talents spending time on this filth. <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See endnotes for content warnings.

The sea was wet, snow fell on mountain peaks, and Valsanna held another note from the Treasury House demanding she pay the amounts owing on sellswords.

Footsteps echoed around her, distorted by Understone Keep's bizarre acoustics; light shone in a blinding wash of white over the polished floors and walls. Val and her guards stood near the southern wing, shadowed by a massive planter of violas and snowdrops that filled the air with a heady, wine-rich fragrance.

Her guards twitched and hovered behind her, but the Reachman messenger boy who’d brought the note shifted his weight with a child’s impatience. She ignored him, though it was harder to ignore the cloak pin he wore, shaped into the Silver-Bloods’ crest.

_Even their servants gleam._

She didn’t dare glance around; she might as well shout, “I have mismanaged my assets and will be declaring bankruptcy. If you could wait until I’ve stopped twitching to start feeding, I would appreciate it.” But on her face she felt the gazes of Thanes and landowners, some of Igmund’s favourite advisors. Legion officers. The Thalmor Justiciar lurking, unseen, near the Mournful Throne.

As if it wasn’t enough to command her like the lowest serving girl. The Silver-Bloods had to confront her here, where every one of their peers could see. Where her shame would be public.

Pretending to scrutinize the note, Val said, “And how is he faring?”

The boy paused in digging something out of his left nostril. “What?”

“Your master, the one who sent you. I hope he’s well?”

The boy raised his eyebrows at her hip—or, really, at her satchel of coins. “Don’t remember.”

She handed him a septim, careful to avoid his fingers. He took it, turned it over and over, weighed it in his palm, scratched the edges. “It’s Thonar,” he said. “He was angry.”

 _Perfect_. “Especially angry?”

“I don’t know. Regular angry. I think.”

“That is not helpful,” she told him. He’d started picking his nose again and just shrugged. “And please, stop that, it’s disgusting.”

“Sorry.” He switched to his right nostril.

The first letter she’d received, three months past now, had been outwardly polite enough, a reminder to pay the amounts she owed. She’d written back, trying to strike a balance between pleading and composed: _As you are no doubt aware, my late father’s estate remains tied up in many legal issues. I humbly ask your compassion in this matter._

More had come and gone, but this letter was markedly cooler than the previous ones. _This is your final notice regarding your payments_. _We remind you that you are now six months in arrears. If you are unable to produce the requisite amounts, present yourself at the Treasury House to discuss the matter of your surety at your earliest convenience._

“When does your master expect a reply?” she asked the boy.

“He told me to bring him your response right away, Matron Wall-Hewer.”

The presumption _._ She fought to keep her face smooth. Calm rulers lead calm people, Father had always said, and strong hands guide over the roughest trails. More than ever, she had to embody those virtues. _Calm. Strength._

More notes waited on her desk back home, little traps ready to go off at a touch: sheaves of letters from her solicitor, calculations of expenditures relating to her holdings, a request for spending money from her sister. Invitations to parties that she would decline, because attending outings amidst this violence smacked of the chieftain in the fable who drank and danced while Tiber Septim marched on his hold.

She sympathised with the need to forget, even if she never forgot herself. The streaks of blood appearing like warnings on path, stone and tree. The dry dirt giving way, suddenly, to forest. The slick bed of moss and bloody sludge, Father’s body cooling atop it.

And now she would have the singular pleasure of begging for mercy from Thonar. _The_ _leech._ Better to beg for mercy from the hags. The longhouse, the family vaults built into the mountains, the ruby mine, the land—Thonar would take it all from her, because that was his right, and unlike real leeches he didn’t stop feasting when his victims died.

At the bottom of the note, in another hand, someone—him?—had written, _So sorry to hear of your troubles. I have some ideas for alternatives. TS._

She handed the note to one of her guards, conscious of the way the boy shrank back. The smile she forced felt rictus-strained, but she gave him another septim. “Tell your master I’ll join him this evening. And tell him I look forward to putting these matters behind us and resolving things as friends.”

* * *

The site of her battle was a study, set deep within the Treasury House’s labyrinthine termite mound. As the receptionist led her in the air seemed to get denser, smokier, darker, like she was descending to some Oblivion realm of scorched stone and lava floes. Or perhaps it was just the ancient sputtering braziers and moth-eaten wall-hangings. On the way in she’d passed an immense silvered mirror and caught glimpses of herself, pale and wide-eyed, face hard.

Thonar sat at his desk, staring into the fire, and a sellsword slouched against the wall beside him.

Father had worked with the Silver-Bloods often, and Val had met him when she visited Markarth over the years, usually at a distance and usually with Father hovering at her shoulder. But she’d never stopped feeling that frisson of surprise when they came face to face. No cleft hooves, no tail, no thousand writhing arms. Just a tall, well-dressed man, who seemed exhausted and needed a shave.

“Valsanna Wall-Hewer, daughter of Harrald, here on business,” the receptionist said in a quavering voice, then bolted.

Irritation crossed Thonar’s face, then vanished. “Valsanna, a pleasure. About the amounts owing. Thank you for coming so quickly.”

“Of course.”

She bowed, surprised when he stood and gestured at a pair of chairs in front of his desk. She refused to be put off by the contrast between his politeness and his letter’s brusque command. Whatever his power, she was a lady, well-bred; she was owed no less than this.

This was the epitome of a man’s space: low-lighting, dark wood and dark leather, the ceiling layered with ornate bronze tiles. She slid in, absurd in her silk and lace and youth, a girl who’d snuck into her father’s office. His rugs were better than hers, densely woven and from Elinhir.

For once he ignored her, thumbing through a stack of ledgers with careful, almost graceful gestures. “I was just checking your accounts,” he said, still not looking up. “You’re in some difficulties, I see.”

“Yes. So it seems.”

“I hope we can resolve things with…” He met her eyes at last, expression neutral. “With minimal unpleasantness between us.”

The skin between her shoulder blades prickled, but she would not glance behind her. Nothing menaced her here, no shadow at the ready with a blade. _My blood is as high is his. I am his equal._

Thonar seemed to have found whatever he was looking for; he tapped the page as if marking it in his mind. He rose from the desk and clapped his mercenary on the back with performative warmth—an obvious dismissal—then paused at a heavy cabinet.

When the door clicked shut behind his guard, he said, “I have the 98 Fratere Laronc, if you’d like. You look like you could use a drink.”

 _You are scared_ , he was saying, _and I can tell, however much you try to hide it._

“I would never expect you to open something of that quality, of course.” A hundred-year-old bottle of brandy even Titus Mede would not refuse. Already the power plays began. “Please, save it for a special occasion.”

“I was saving it for Betrid’s fortieth birthday.” He said it uninflected, like he spoke of a dead dog. The fire blazed in the hearth, but Val tugged her fur tighter around her shoulders.

“Then I would be honoured to drink to her memory.”

He poured a finger’s width of brandy for them both. Every nerve in her body tingled in warning, intensifying when he sat in the chair opposite hers. Her joints were loose, quivery. She consciously stopped jiggling her foot.

 _He wouldn’t hurt me_. As if Thonar couldn’t cut her to ribbons with such delicate cruelty it would leave no mark. As if she hadn’t provoked him on a thousand occasions, thwarting him with a thousand little obstructions: voting against his brother’s motions, wearing her Legionnaire’s sword to court, curling her lip every time someone mentioned his family’s name.

“Thonar, before we begin, I’d like to start by apologising, sincerely. At Igmund’s feast last time, I spoke impetuously. I should never have implied that your business conduct is anything but above-board. We all owe you an immense debt here in the Reach.”

He made a noncommittal noise, drank more. If he’d lashed out at her, screamed insults, thrown his drink in her face, none of that would have come as a shock. He had been so furious then. His eyes had cut through the haze of her drunkenness like the point of a dagger.

But now he smiled, a gracious, almost boyish smile. “No apology needed, Valsanna. Who hasn’t gotten out of hand while trying to find the bottom of Raerek’s cellar?”

Against her better judgement she tasted her own brandy. It was smooth as old linen, mingled musk and sweet vanilla, with a finish that lingered for an eternity. As rich and expensive as the glass, the room, the man. No burn of liquor to brace or ground her.

“It’s certainly outstanding,” she said. “Almost as good as yours, I’m told.”

“Well, you know what Gorais of Daggerfall said.” She shook her head. “‘Forget Aetherius—send my soul to the Gilt Slopes of Shornhelm.’”

She laughed, masking her suspicion and alarm. Thonar’s infamous tantrums were no joy, but his charm was worse. Charm meant he wanted something she had.

“It’s good you came,” he continued, interrupting her worries. “Having you default on your payments is of no interest to me.”

“A pun?”

He didn’t smile this time. Outlanders said Reach Nords had been inbred like bad horses, and maybe that was true, because he had the same translucently pale eyes her father had had. The same, except Thonar’s had no warmth, no kindness, no humour, and moved over her face, neck and chest like the bite of a lash.

She changed tack. “I’d like to discuss a plan for repayment. Specifically, I’d like to renegotiate the interest on the amount I owe. It’s the majority of what I’m paying right now.”

Thonar sat back, his fingers tracing idle patterns on his glass. The light illuminated little, far more like a bedroom than an office, and the fire gleamed red against the stubble starting to show on his jaw.

He was looking at her expectantly. He’d said something that required a response, and she’d been staring at his room and at him. A flush that had nothing to do with the fire’s heat crept up her face. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?”

“I said”—only the slight emphasis on this word betrayed annoyance—“that there’s a considerable accumulated debt on your account.”

“These times have been so hard for all of us. Even Redbank isn’t an island, though thanks to your forces, we’ve avoided a large part of this tragic violence.”

Thonar raised a hand to his mouth. Sparks reflected from the stone in his ring, a ruby that had to be three or four carats. In the room’s surrounding darkness its darkness was like blood.

“Times have been hard. But you owe twice the amount of my next largest debtor.” When she kept silent, he huffed and shook his head. “Personally, I always thought you were an inexperienced administrator and a high-risk loan. But Reburrus likes tall, dark and handsome, so here we are.”

Already the sly, back-handed comments. She searched his expression for some hint of empathy. But the gloom turned his face to a shadow, mirroring the darkness of the room around them. Nothing was visible except for his cheekbones, his jaw, his temples outlined in firelight, and his icy, indifferent eyes.

No, not indifferent. He looked at her now with that singular focus she recognized: the cold, hungry perusal he gave her whenever she crossed his path, like she dwelt in the world for him to consume at his leisure. Like she was both a lower form of life he wanted to study and a prey animal he wanted to sink his teeth into.

“If we could stick to the topic,” she said.

“As you say. Have you considered liquidating any of your assets?”

“I beg your pardon—assets?”

"You dress as well as my late wife did. Gods rest her soul. You think I don’t know what clothes like that cost? Half our household budget went to her, and you’re not far behind.” He flashed a hard, fleeting smirk. “I know Evermore lace when I see it. Whiterun wool not cutting it for you?”

A stupid error, foolish beyond excuse. She should have presented herself as the needy supplicant, but she’d swept in like a princess, dripping wealth.

“Lady Betrid’s beauty was the toast of the Reach on both sides of the Druadachs.” Best enjoyed at a distance and in silence, the toast went, but Thonar didn’t need to hear that. “I would never aspire to her glamour.”

She’d hoped praising his dead wife would distract him, but Thonar just took another sip of brandy. If anything his face had hardened a little. “That’s beside the point,” he said, his voice much quieter now.

“You know how important appearances are, especially in these dark times.” She smoothed the planes of her gown across her waist and thighs. His eyes followed her motion and seemed to burn with more than reflected firelight.

When he looked back at her the lines had deepened around his mouth. “Let me be blunt with you, Valsanna.”

She could think of nothing she wanted less than ‘honesty’ from Thonar. “Please.”

“I can’t provide you with more charity. It’s becoming an issue. Everyone is concerned about their safety right now, myself not the least.”

 _Say it. Look at me and swing your sword like a man._ “Of course. I feel for you, Thonar. I remember how horrified I was, after my father’s murder. We have both suffered a great deal of personal loss at the hands of the Forsworn—”

“I’m not done.” His curt interruption shocked her into silence. “You pledged a surety to us. You recall what it was.”

“Very well.”

She had spoken a dozen times in front of a hundred people. But the bare threat, his lizard-like stillness, strangled her. He seemed unbothered by her growing indignation, her rage. _How can he do this? How can he sit there, mocking me, picking over my life, and feeling nothing?_

“So we can settle for the amounts. Redbank should cover it, I think.”

It took far too long for her to speak. “There are two hundred people in that village. People who trust in _my_ good governance.”

“My heart bleeds. There are five hundred in Colnaig, and thirty-thousand here in Markarth. All of them could use the additional protection. And the coin you haven’t paid, too.”

“No doubt.” Fury made her voice grate. She had to break off before she lost her temper altogether and said something damning she couldn’t take back. “Your compassion is well known. You are a model to us all.”

Thonar rose and moved towards the fireplace, as if he paced to think through the words. Not being able to see his expression was worse, somehow. She hadn’t been able to read his face before, but at least she’d had the comforting illusion.

“I was considering another option. Introducing some oversight.” He spoke in a low, even voice, like she was a skittish horse. “It would likely be to your benefit to bring in a partner. Good luck in getting investors, with the state of the hold.”

“I will not hear insults against my Jarl.”

“Forget the Jarl,” he said. “A beautiful woman like yourself, it would be a simple matter to find an older, shrewder husband to run the operation for you. That’s a viable option.”

A queasy, vibrating surge of energy shot through her and left her colder than before. She had to turn away. The looks he gave her. The sideways remarks. His reputation. _Stay out of the Silver-Bloods’ schemes_ , Mama had said to her once, _and stay out of their clutches_. And it was always, always obvious which brother she referred to.

“I take it you have someone in mind. Yourself, perhaps?”

She realised he had turned to face her. She could sense it, somehow, whenever he did, like he touched her without touching her. “Are you being dense on purpose? Of course. Redbank could be quite profitable if someone competent were running it.”

Her despair had an edge of viciousness. “I congratulate you. That was the rudest proposal I’ve ever received, which is an incredible achievement in Markarth.”

“We’re both businessmen, Valsanna. I know you know a good deal when you’re offered one, method of delivery notwithstanding.”

 _I know an assault dressed up as a gift, too_. Even if he had flattered and begged her, even if he had gone to one knee and kissed her hand, she’d have refused. His notoriety spread through the city like grease. Inexorable, inescapable. Staining everything it touched.

“I appreciate the generous offer. But I must decline.”

He was silent for a moment, as if he had to compose himself. As if she’d offended him. “I find this very surprising,” he said at length. “Surely I’m close enough to what you’ve been looking for.”

She hadn’t been looking for anything, and his needless arrogance glanced off her like a blow. She grasped for her courtesy, her propriety, but it seemed to slide away. “No. You are not remotely what _anyone_ is looking for. You’re crude, you’re twice my age, you’re balding, based on what I’ve heard you probably have a disease—”

“Your point is made, Valsanna.” He sounded outraged, like he couldn’t fathom that she hadn’t been dreaming of an infamously philandering mine owner in his fifties who, when people cast about for something nice to say of him, was described as ‘well-read.’ “I am making you an excellent offer. Maybe you should keep a nicer tongue in your head.”

His glass clicked against the mantle, muffled through the pulse in her ears. A nicer tongue. Like a pet, or property. The roles women played in his world.

“Again, I decline.”

When she looked he was nodding, but with tight, constrained gestures, as if he did it just to spend his angry energy. “How old are you, again?”

“Twenty-nine, and if the next words out of your mouth are that I am aging out of the market—”

“No. But you’re a little old to be so childish. What, you’re looking for a love match?”

“No.” And yes, too. Her parents had had one, against all odds. It had always seemed to her to be everything a relationship should be: a meeting of peers, full of warmth and easy affection. Father had looked at Mama like she was the culmination of every pure, beautiful, precious thing in the world.

“I think mutual compatibility is based on respect, if nothing else.” Her voice was small, but she lifted her chin anyway.

Thonar snorted. A bitter sound, nothing like a laugh. “Gods, you _are_ a girl. You wanted a shining prince to come. Sweep you off your feet. Worship and cherish you forever. Do I have it right?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“Join us all in reality, Valsanna. The hold is on fire and your dear Jarl does nothing. But you could do very well with me, you know.” With the fire behind him his expression was invisible. “You have some very promising ventures. I will make you the richest woman in Skyrim. Teach you everything I know.”

 _Lessons in extortion, blackmail, and rape?_ “I doubt that. Sincerely.”

“ _Almost_ everything I know. Come on, Lady Val. What are you playing, here?”

‘Lady Val’ was the pet-name her father had given her. “I’ve never given you leave to use my—”

“As you wish. You know what they call you behind your back? The best mountaineer in Markarth.” He pressed a fist to his mouth, the line of his shoulders trembling a little. Stifling laughter. “Much easier to climb over me to get to the Mournful Throne, wouldn’t you say? I don’t mind. I offer myself up. Climb me all you like.”

She sat there, shaking with anger, her palms itching because she longed to stand and strike him across the face. And scared, too, now. She was not safe. She was here because he felt that decent behaviour was the best way to get what we wanted. When he no longer thought that, the good behaviour would end, and the real Thonar would emerge. He was emerging now.

“This is blackmail. What are my options here? Be dragged through the courts and publicly humiliated? Or be sexually extorted. These are not choices, Thonar.”

“ _Sexually_ extorted,” he said, more quietly. “You joke.”

Even his shock seemed remote, muted. Her ears buzzed, and the blood seemed to have left her face to pool in her feet. “I don’t find it particularly funny. What would you call it?”

“My interest is in your lands, not your person, however lovely.” And then, inappropriate given the subject he’d raised, he touched his tongue to his teeth, as if he were trying not to laugh again. “Interesting, though, that that was your first thought. The mind reveals itself, as the poets say.”

 _You are an absolute asshole._ She stared at his desk, its expanse of teak and papers so similar to her own. But his presence was impossible to ignore; she heard him swallow a mouthful of the Laronc, imagined him leaning against the mantle with that self-satisfied expression on his face. Or perhaps he looked at her with something else. Something hungrier.

“Well? You’ve piqued my curiosity. Don’t be shy. I won’t laugh.”

 _This is not happening to me. This is a nightmare, a hallucination._ “I have nothing to say on the matter. Your behavior is appalling, as your reputation suggests.”

“ _My_ reputation? I was talking about a business arrangement. You provide access to Redbank, I manage it. You brought other matters into it, not I.”

“It was implied in your offer.”

“Yes, I guess it was.”

She flinched into her armchair, refusing to look at him. Like if she didn’t see him, he’d cease to exist. A girl, he’d called her, and perhaps she was, under and after everything.

“Do I scare you so much, Valsanna? You always look terrified, unless you’re sneering at me in front of the godsdamned Jarl.” His gaze on her was like the touch of a flaying knife, peeling back her skin, leaving her nerves bare. Then, his voice almost like a caress, he said, “But you’re not just terrified, it seems.”

She was disoriented, as if she’d been running through a dark forest and had come upon her own footprints. Everything in her strained against the idea. And he radiated malice, palpably present. Pressing in on her, though if she reached out a hand she could not have touched him.

She felt an awareness, too, of her own body: her fingertips hot, the rise of her chest, the slide of silk against her legs.

“What are you talking about?” They’d been discussing her accounts, and suddenly she was defending her dignity and person. He’d bent her words, the way he bent and warped everything. “ _You’re_ being crass. _You’re_ the one who leers at _me_.”

Thonar had come up behind her, his footsteps quiet for such a tall man. The proximity made the hairs on her arms prickle, and she felt his small shift of weight as he leaned closer, bracing himself on the back of the armchair. When he touched her shoulder, she froze. Caught.

“Please,” he said. “At the assembly? I was almost embarrassed. Even Reburrus commented.”

It took her a moment to recollect. “Shortly after your wife died, you mean? When they made Nico Secennia a Thane?”

There had been a ceremony at the Keep to mark the event, though more muted than usual given the month's bloody horror. The brothers had been there too, both of them, and as usual Thongvor looked more like a Jarl than quiet, unassuming Igmund. But Thonar had been haggard. Grief, she’d thought, amazed. Remembering how she’d felt when Father died, the people she’d expected to hear from who were silent, the people who had averted their eyes as if her pain were too horrible to acknowledge. Like Father had never existed at all and his death, and therefore life, did not matter. Like Val did not matter. 

She’d gone up to Thonar afterwards and laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she’d whispered. “All of us are thinking of you, most of all me.” She hadn't thought he’d even heard.

His hand moved in a disorienting, soothing motion. He would never recognize compassion. It would be an object from a higher dimension entering his lower-order world. Flattened into something he could understand: scorn or hatred or contempt. Or lust.

“That was _pity_ ,” she said. “I _pitied_ you. You looked like a wreck, like no one cared anymore if you lived or died.”

He yanked his hand back, but regained himself quickly. “Well, apparently they do. You do. I am, ah, most moved. A good start to a marriage, no?”

“No.”

Almost teasingly, he scratched her neck, the softest brush of his nails over her skin. She shuddered with revulsion and something wholly not revulsion. His other hand was still on her shoulder, warm and strong. So close his cologne lingered with a faint, expensive fragrance; complex layers that resolved, when she inhaled again, into cedar.

Cedar. The smell of Redbank, the endless hours of afternoon sunsets that gave way, all at once, to the twinkling black heat of night. She blinked hard against a sudden ache in her eyes.

Dragging herself into the present was a struggle. “You’re repulsive. You’re the most repulsive person I’ve ever met.”

“Let’s test your claim, then.” His voice had roughened. “I can think of an easy way to check.” She jerked herself away from him and rose to her feet, but he was blocking her path to the door. “No?”

“I am a daughter of Skyrim,” she said, proud of how her voice remained level. “You can’t treat me like this. Now let me go.”

To her shock, he stepped aside. “Of course. No one is detaining you.” He gestured to the door and made it the most cutting mockery. “Consider my offer at your leisure. You won’t get a better one, I’m confident.”

She’d expected force—him throwing her to the floor, ripping her clothes. Or something more subtle, perhaps; a sideways, sneered threat. _Are you certain you wish to cross me? Markarth is so dangerous these days. I would hate for some harm to befall you._

But he studied his nails like she’d overstayed her welcome and he was waiting to turn in for the night.

“Just like that?”

“I’m also a son of Skyrim, my dear—a _true_ son. I have no taste and no use for the weak and the cowardly.” The endearment dripped with disdain, a stark contrast to the pride with which he said ‘true son’. “Are you weak and a coward, Valsanna?”

He’d draped his arms across the head of the armchair, deceptively casual. People said mountain lions could hear the heartbeats of their prey. Could he hear hers? It seemed so loud in her ears, as if it shook her ribcage.

“You know I am not.”

“Then why don’t you hurry up and make your decision? We both know what it’ll be. This coyness is starting to bore me.”

She took two steps past him, towards the door. The keen sense of her body and the hundred ways in which it breathed and pulsed, she was not shocked by that. But she was shocked at how acutely she felt his proximity. Him.

Her hesitation was long enough for him to grip her wrist and step closer. She’d worn heels; standing, their heights were near. _Go_ , a part of her urged, _don’t play these games you can’t win. He will use you and tear you down and leave you as a ruin._

But he raked her with his gaze like she was already naked. Like he saw through her clothes and inside her, saw how bad and depraved and degenerate she really was. The stare pinned her, left her paralyzed with the prey sensation of being backed into an ambush. Her every twitch was a betrayal.

As she watched herself, as if in a nightmare where her every movement was confused, she raised her hand and rotated it in his grasp so his thumb and index finger licked her skin. Still watching his eyes, not pulling away, so that she could see his pupils dilate. Desire.

Her breath stuttered and fear tingled through her, but so like excitement her nipples hardened. She had to press her knees together.

 _This is all wrong_. Too late. She was the girl in the story who had stepped into the spirit circle and, with that single step, found herself trapped beyond return. He tugged her forwards and then his other hand gripped her bicep, holding her there like she might dart.

She was spared kissing him. Instead he pulled her against him, fitting his hips into hers. He was slim, much slimmer than his brother or her father, but with a spare strength in his hands and arms that she hadn’t expected.

The thinness of their clothes—his soft linen tunic, her lace—seemed more indecent than being naked. He’d laid his hands on her, the lady in her fine gown, the public persona, the armour that was supposed to keep her safe from things and men like this.

There would be no retreat from this instant. Thonar would always remember who he’d had.

And she could feel now that he was already hard, pressing against her through their clothes. Anticipation, or her shame, or his power. A terrifying, intoxicating sensation that made her press her nails into her palms.

Anticipation and shame and power had always excited her, too.

He forced her backwards, step by step, his elegant hands like iron on her wrists. It wasn’t until the hard edge of the desk jabbed the back of her thighs and she stumbled that she realised she was cornered. She had been wrong, their heights were not so close at all—not like this. He stood over her as tall as her father had seemed when she was a little girl.

“Such a lady.” His voice was cold and brutal. “So much fucking better than me. Who do you think you are?”

Father was dead and he would never, never, never have wanted this for her. He would have wept for her. She wanted to weep too, even as she pressed herself hard against Thonar, turning a little so his lips caught on her ear, so she couldn’t see his face. His cock pressed into her where he stood between her thighs, a hard line of heat, and he ran his hands over her, stroking the places where she’d smoothed her gown before.

The sensation had the light, cold threat of a knife’s edge. When his lips touched her neck, she gasped. And under her hand—she’d been touching his leg without realizing it, but she realized it now—he tensed.

“You must be very proud of your offenses,” he said into her ear. “You must feel you’ve landed quite some blows on me.”

“Why would I be—?” He bit her earlobe, and she broke off. Nothing about this made her proud.

“Lift your hips.” He gripped her thigh, her hip hard enough that there would be bruises, and when she obeyed he yanked her skirts up to reveal her legs. She liked them, whittled from years of Legionnaire service. But here they were an absurdity, bare and glowing in the firelight of some Treasury House study.

She’d thought his hands would be cold, but they were warm and human, rough with a gentleman’s callouses: reins and pen. He grabbed her bare thigh, harder now, and she had to look away. Weak and a coward. But she hated the involuntary way she tensed, hated how her mouth went dry and she suddenly throbbed wet, hated both herself and him.

“You were wrong,” she whispered. “I’ve always known you were an animal.”

“Well, you seem up for some bestiality.” He pressed his hand against the already-damp crotch of her undergarments. When he pushed his fingers into the gap between the fabric and her thigh, she bit her lip until it stung and bled.

He pulled her undergarments down, and she—again, obedient—lifted her hips to assist, then kicked them aside. They looked even more ridiculous against the polished granite floor than her legs did, and the wood was cold under her bare ass, the wool of his pants grating her skin.

He stroked her everywhere, his motions punishing, relentless. Then he traced a finger between her lips and she could think nothing. Nothing except her humiliation at rocking her hips into the stroke.

His touch was what she’d dreamed a cruel man’s touch would be: furious, demanding, offering no quarter or retreat, just his skin hot and insistent against hers. Like a betrayal she was wetter, burning, pushing her thigh against him as she clenched.

And when she was ready to curse him to the Void and bite him to bloody scraps, he finally, finally thrust one of his long fingers inside her, too little for how far gone she was. She was beyond caring that he stared down at her, his eyes moving between her face and her cunt.

“This is what you wanted, is it?” He twisted his hand against her clit so that she had to grip the edge of the desk. “This is the sweet prince you were dreaming of? Rescuing you from your own stupidity?”

The insanity of the moment, she sitting silently while this cold-blooded man fingered and insulted her like she was his possession, excited and revolted her. Under her the wood was not as cold and slick, now. She pressed herself against the heel of his hand and wondered what the fuck was wrong with her.

“Ah, Valsanna.” His breath stirred the hair that had come down from her braids. “Yes. Your prince. You little whore.”

“Stop talking.”

He exhaled in a not-quite laugh. “As my princess commands.”

He still held her in place, grinding himself against her thigh, a counterpoint to the slowness with which he thrust his fingers into her. He bit her shoulder through the silk and lace, and she had time to think, _He’s going to destroy this dress, my mother’s dress, I’m wearing my mother’s fucking dress doing this_ , before he did something with his fingers that made her go limp.

His other hand moved to her breast, making that near-comforting motion again, but now it was a taunt. Her nipples ached, pressing through the thin fabric. Yet another concession. She hadn’t wanted to give him anything of herself.

She no longer thought about shame, at least, though when he slid his fingers into her again they made a wet, indecent sound, and shame circled like a hungry wolf. His breath was hot on her skin, growing ragged.

His hand was concealed under the fabric bunched around her hips. If she tried she could imagine herself as separate parts: the real Val inside her head, watching these bizarre and incomprehensible proceedings. And the other Val, her body. Thighs spread, hips shifting, face pressed against his neck as he bent to touch her, everything between her legs aching, soaked and trembling. And he was still moving inside her, sliding a hand from her breast, across her stomach, lower, stroking her with such unbearable insistence that she gave a disgusting, inhuman sound—

He laughed. “I could get used to negotiations like this.”

“Talos.” She ground the oath out between her teeth. “Shut _up_.”

But he wasn’t remote or detached anymore, even in his mockery. Down here in the dirt together they were equals of a sort. Even the Leech was a flesh and blood man, just a mortal man, and he was flushed, taking his hand from her clit to grip the desk too. He must have been dissatisfied— _good_ —and when she placed her hand between his legs, stroking him through his pants, he choked.

 _I am conquering a titan._ She kept touching him, tracing the shape of his erection through the cloth. The sense of power amazed her. _You can shame me and scare me and threaten me, but I have something you want, too._

Cold comfort, and fleeting. He grasped her knee, bending her leg away from him. The sudden flash of cold air on her skin was like a slap, and she jerked back, shocked. But he didn’t give her a chance to recover, because his hand pressed again between her legs, rubbing with firm, insistent gestures.

She let go of the desk to grab his forearm, not sure if she wanted to stop him or urge him on.

Every part of her seemed concentrated on that point, her pulse pounding through her forehead and behind her eyes and in her cunt, tensing around him. In some detached corner of her mind she wondered if this were pleasure or torture or desire or fear or all of them together, irreversibly blended now like mixed paint.

“I’m not your brother or your father.” His strokes against her clit were even, relentless. It was close to how she touched herself. “But I _am_ going to teach you something.”

She gasped out a panicked curse, then a panicked, pleading, “No!” The added sensation was a blow, too much, dragging her towards an orgasm that she fought like it would kill her. She twisted against him, scrabbling for an impossible escape. The linen of his shirtsleeves caught, snagged on her nails.

He held her there with the weight of his body, pinning her in place. She couldn’t smell his cologne anymore. All she could smell was herself.

Then she was finished, she was gone too far, it was over. She tried to shove him away from her again but every escape was closed. No retreat, just hard wood against her tailbone and punishing, devouring, degrading pleasure. She made a hopeless sound, almost a sob, lifting her hips to thrust into his hand, staring at him staring at her.

So weak. She’d never been so weak as in this moment.

The shame descended before she’d caught her breath, before the last spark of her orgasm had faded, before the sensation came back into her hands and limbs and she realized she was sitting, half-naked, on wet wood, that she’d knocked piles of his papers to the floor. She’d slumped forwards, one hand outstretched as if for crucifixion, one clutching his arm.

She let him go. He was still inside her, and still staring. Still hard and dissatisfied against the inside of her thigh, and breathing as hard as she did. That no longer seemed like a triumph.

He eased his hand out of her and raised it in front of her face. All five of his fingers glistened. He said nothing, because nothing needed to be said. His point was made.

When he spoke, his voice rasped only slightly. “You should be happy, Valsanna. Here’s that mutual compatibility you spoke of.”

She raised her head. He was flushed, as she must have been, and sweat shone on his forehead and temples. But his eyes hadn’t warmed. They were as cold as a stranger’s.

“Mutual compatibility.” She filled the words with all the things that she could not say aloud: that his last marriage had been a sham and a mockery of the word, that he’d dishonoured his late wife before the eyes of the city, that he knew nothing of anyone’s heart, least of all hers.

“Call it whatever you want. I know a satisfied customer when I see one.” As if to drive the point home, he wiped his hands clean on her gown. “Your ancestors got their lands from the hands of a God. You’re the child of masters. Stop cringing and act like it.”

Her limbs were weak, leaden, her skin numb. The wood dug into her elbow where she’d caught herself, and she was still naked from the waist down. His eyes flickered down, as if he were thinking the same thing. One of his hands lay on her leg. He’d taken off his massive ring. _How thoughtful. He tears me apart only metaphorically._

“There is something deeply wrong with you.” And she knew, as she said it, that it was true.

“I am the same as every other man.” He leaned forwards, wetting his lips, and for a heartbeat she imagined the bloody give of his skin if she tore a chunk out with her teeth. “Shining princes live only in poems, Lady Val. There’s no kindness without a cost, and no insult that goes unanswered.”

This was her punishment, then. She had defied his power, and he had proven it to her in the basest way possible. The insight and his scorn gave her, somehow, the strength to push him off her and stagger to her feet on legs soft as sand.

She rearranged her skirts without being able to feel the fabric, straightening the bodice where it had twisted, tugging the neckline back into place. She’d worn her hair in a tight braid, and it was hard to tell how badly it had been mussed by touch alone.

“No further comment?” he said. “That’s a welcome surprise. I like this arrangement already.”

He stood there, tunic and jacket rumpled, though the colour was starting to leave his face, and sneering. An illusion of composure, she felt sure, since he hadn’t finished and must have been throbbing. _Unlike you, idiot._ She might as well get on her knees, kiss the ring, beg to suck him off.

He’d won. She’d meant to withhold something from him, but he had gained something else. Not sex, just power.

“Oh, my comment,” Val said. “Fuck you.”

“Hm.” Thonar studied her, frosty-eyed, from foot to hair, and she hated imagining what he saw. “You will.”

She cast around for the Laronc to throw in his face, but she’d left hers on the floor by her chair and his was on the mantle. She willed it into her hand, pictured herself dumping it over his head. An emperor’s ransom in wine, spent on her shame and rage.

He shifted, wincing a little, and said, “Regardless, it was a pleasure negotiating with you.” She could see, in her peripheral vision, when he gave her a derisive smile. “Always nice to ride the horse before you buy it.”

Val shoved past him and fled the battlefield like she always did. Like the coward she truly, deeply, eternally was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for extremely dubious consent (the viewpoint character willingly engages in a sexual encounter, but would likely have faced some sort of retaliation had she not done so).
> 
> Ah, so you thought the first chapter would be schemes and plots but it was just smut? Do Tell. *people get mad at me* sorry. I'm sorry. I'm trying to delete it.


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